Forgotten Read online

  For a moment—just a moment—Rone’s hard expression melted just a little. He looked down at Kate and she could tell he was trying to communicate with her—trying to use the mental bond that all Kindred developed with their mates after bonding sex.

  But all she could hear was a deafening silence.

  “Rone?” she asked hesitantly. “Are…are you trying to speak to me?”

  A look of despair came over his strong features.

  “Yes…yes, I am. Can you not hear me at all?” His deep voice sounded so desperate Kate wished she could say yes. But there was no way to fake this kind of thing.

  “No,” she whispered. “I…I’m so sorry but I don’t hear anything.”

  “Gods.” Rone squeezed his eyes tightly shut for a moment and breathed deeply.

  “Rone?” Kate looked at him anxiously. “Rone, what does this mean?”

  “It means that our bond is broken beyond repair,” he said in a low, gruff voice. “If what I did to you last night didn’t restore it, nothing can.”

  “So…you’re saying our bond can’t be fixed?” Kate whispered. “But I don’t understand—where does that leave us?”

  “It leaves us nowhere.” He looked away from her, clearly unwilling to meet her eyes. “We don’t belong together anymore, Kate. I think maybe…maybe I should just take you home.”

  Kate felt like someone had punched her in the stomach.

  “Home to the ship, you mean?” she asked softly.

  Rone shook his head. “No. Home to Earth.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  “Sylvan will be in to examine you in just a minute. Does it hurt much?” Sophie, Commander Sylvan’s wife was sitting by Kate’s bedside in the med center of the Mother Ship.

  Rone had decided to go there first, before he dropped Kate back at Mimi’s place in Tampa, because he felt he had to report everything that had happened to the head of the Kindred High Council as soon as possible. If he hadn’t had that duty to discharge, Kate thought bitterly, he would have taken her directly back to Earth and dropped her like a hot potato.

  “Does what hurt?” she asked flatly. “If you’re asking about my swollen ankle, yes, it hurts like a son-of-a-bitch. The rest of me is fine. Just fine.”

  “Oh…” Sophie bit her lip. “Uh, well, this is awkward, which is one reason Sylvan asked me to ask you about it…”

  “What’s awkward?” Kate demanded.

  “Your mate, Rone, has asked us to do a rape exam on you.” The new voice came from a blonde girl in pink scrubs who had just entered the room.

  Kate looked up at her and then did a double take back at Sophie.

  “Hey, you’re…you guys look just alike.”

  “Except for our hair and eyes, yeah, we get that a lot,” the girl said. “I’m Olivia, by the way—Sophie’s twin. But you can call me Liv. All my friends do.”

  “Well you and I aren’t going to be friends for long if you keep saying that Rone…that he raped me.” Kate glared at Olivia fiercely, letting her know exactly what she thought of such an idea.

  “Hey, I’m not saying it—he is.” Liv held up her hands in a “don’t shoot” gesture.

  “I think he’s just worried that you might be, well, injured,” Sophie said delicately. “He wants to make sure you’re all right—that’s all.”

  “Well he can ask me himself if he wants to know.” Kate crossed her arms over her chest stubbornly. “Dr. Sylvan can look at my ankle but that’s all he’s looking at as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Sylvan will be with you as soon as he finishes seeing his own doctor,” Liv said. “He’s getting his dressing changed.”

  “Oh? What happened to him?” Kate felt a twinge of worry for the blond Kindred doctor. Though she was still kind of upset with him for sending her and Rone to Flame and Frost, which had turned into such a fiasco, she believed he had done it in good faith. And he had been awfully nice to her the last time she’d been aboard the Mother Ship.

  “He was bitten by some kind of a rat or Guinea pig or something,” Liv said. “It didn’t do much more than take a chunk out of his thumb but we’re being extra cautious because we don’t know what it was or where it came from.”

  “Can’t you study it? Run some tests on it to make sure it’s not carrying anything?” Kate asked.

  “Well, we could if we could find it,” Liv said. “But it ran off before he could catch it and now we can’t locate the darn thing. We’ve seriously been over the entire Mother Ship with a fine tooth comb and it’s gone—just gone. Like it disappeared right off the ship somehow.”

  “Ugh! I hate rats!” Sophie said and shivered. “But Sylvan is healing up nicely and there’s no sign of infection or anything else, thank the Goddess.”

  “When did it happen?” Kate asked.

  “Not long after the two of you left for Flame and Frost,” Sophie told her. “By the way—how was it? Were they able to get all the fear toxins out of you and restore your memory?”

  Kate shifted uneasily. “I’m afraid not. I mean, they did get the fear toxins out—by almost drowning me in a pool of black goop. But the hole in my memory is still there.” She sighed. “And now it looks like it always will be.”

  “Hang on—back up.” Liv held up a hand. “You said they nearly drowned you in goop? What kind of a place is this Flame and Frost?”

  “Well, they’re supposed to be a couple’s resort kind of place, right?” Sophie asked.

  Kate nodded. “I’m sure it’s probably a nice place if you stay in the Flame part of it—if you stay in the light. Unfortunately, Rone and I got diverted into the Shadow and wound up in the Frost part. That was…interesting.”

  “Interesting how? What did they do to you?” Liv wanted to know.

  Kate gave them a quick run-down on the Madam of Shadows and the apartment they had put her and Rone in. She omitted the caning she’d taken because she didn’t want Sophie to feel bad.

  “Wow—so everything you did, you had to do together?” Liv asked. “That sounds amazing.”

  “It was amazing, all right,” Kate admitted. “It forced us to get closer—to touch each other. Which was really what we needed since I was so reluctant to touch Rone. First because of the fear toxins and afterwards because I didn’t really feel like I knew him. Anyway, I got to know him pretty quick while we were there.” She sighed. “And now he’s the one who doesn’t want to touch me.”

  “Oh, honey…I’m sure that’s not true.” Sophie patted her arm comfortingly.

  “It is true.” Kate felt a lump in her throat and did her best to swallow it back down. “Ever…ever since we woke up the morning after…after I, uh, tamed his Beast, he can’t even look at me—let alone touch me.”

  “He must feel like he really hurt you,” Liv said softly. “Otherwise he wouldn’t have asked us to check you out, uh, down below.”

  “But that’s the thing—he didn’t. I mean, it was rough and intense but I expected it to be. And even though he was in his Beast form—which was pretty much the same as his regular form, only a little harrier—he wasn’t cruel to me,” Kate said. “I mean, he was demanding and insistent and scary but he was sexy too. Oh God…” She put her face in her hands. “I’m sorry—I really can’t explain this without sounding like a total freak.”

  “You’re not a freak, hon,” Liv said firmly, patting her other arm. “You’re just bonded to a Kindred male. They’re they nicest guys in the universe but things do tend to get a little weird when you’re with one. Believe me—Sophie and I know. Oh, the stories we could tell…”

  “But that’s just the thing,” Kate burst out. “We’re not bonded—not anymore. When Two, the Dark Kindred stole me away and took my memories, he did something to our bond as well. Even after…after all the sex Rone and I had the other night, our bond still didn’t come back and I still can’t remember him. And he says…he says…” She almost couldn’t go on, her throat was so tight.

  “Go on, honey—what does Rone say?” Soph